Learning by experimentation and having trouble

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tgrantjr

New member
Joined
Jun 9, 2019
Messages
2
I am toying around and trying to get some experience and knowledge. I am using acid peroxide solution for my tests. I have a copper bar that I smelted a while back that i put in it and some small balls of wire from some coils that i recovered. The solution has turned dark green and i do have a bubbler in it. The mix i used was 600ml of muriatic acid and 200ml of peroxide. I have tried to get the copper to drop with putting a steel bar in it I got from scrap at work. it had very little on it. So i got a black steel pipe and tried the same thing. Very little to none on the pipe. I thought about the reactivity series of metals so i started putting small pieces of aluminum foil in it and kept track of the temp so it did not boil over. Am i doing something wrong here or just completely off track. Any help is appreciated due to me just learning how to do this. Thanks
 
When you dissolved copper into the solution you made copper II chloride.

Copper II chloride with air will itself dissolve more copper and iron into solution.

So you can have both metals in solution, you can have both of these metals in solution hungry for more copper or iron...

Depending on the oxidation state of the metals, free acid in solution, and active oxidizer like air, will also depend on how the solution reacts to metals, as well as the concentration and temperature...

Say, we first put a little copper in some HCl, not much happens (copper is above hydrogen in the reactivity series), we will need an oxidizer to getting the electron from copper to move, we can use air, or jump up the oxygen content with a splash of H2O2, now copper gives up its electrons to the acid, forming a solution of copper II chloride salt dissolved in water, now this solution will itself attack copper (or iron) and in doing so becomes a copper I Chloride solution, if iron is involved it can be of a ferric state in solution (which will also attack copper or iron or a ferrous state in solution...


Iron will displace copper from solution first converting copper II chloride to a copper I chloride, and then eventually copper I chloride in solution into a copper metal powder.

Aluminum will also displace most of the metals (copper as metal and iron as hydroxides, as the aluminum, also robs the solution of its hydrogen or its acidic nature and makes a gooey mess, difficult to dry or treat properly for waste disposal...

These metals (copper and iron) can have several different oxidation states in solution...

You need to do some more study to understand what is going on in solution, your experiments will give you a better understanding after you gain more education on the subject.

At this point you have not gained much knowledge from dissolving metals in acid, Now go back and study more about ferric and ferrous chloride, cupric, and cuprous chloride, the reaction series of metals...

Then redo your experiments with some knowledge and a better understanding of what to expect and when and why...
 
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